welcome back to tonight's bigger picture discussion on gun violence in america joining me are joshua woods jonathan and lori. let's get back to it laurie on this graphic i was showing earlier it goes through all the you know ninety four thousand people shot the united states and one hundred ninety shot saturday and and then one of the statistics down in here is the number of mass murders committed by women in the last year worldwide. and it's really remarkable i mean without getting too crazy freudian about it and the guns are you know long things that shoot stuff out of the end of them and things but it just seems like this is really a male problem or maybe you know women dealing with this. as much as it is a human problem. well gun manufacturers are targeting women

very specifically with their products that are going to station was founded in one thousand nine hundred three when betty for dan identified this is a women's issue when manufacturers were marketing guns is in pain can purple is the must have excess there is so there are a lot of women out there who are speaking about how important it is to own a gun and so a lot of our messages are directed to them and say you want to have a gun then you better make sure it's locked up safe safely stored and secure or away from your children forty percent of homes households with children in them have a gun in them and nine children a day every day are killed with guns so this this is a women's issue we need we need to be talking to men and women alike about how we can end this epidemic there laura there was a lot of conversation after the election. how women helped obama when social issues

women are a strong voice in the voting place do you do you do you think that your perspective is shared by most american women oh i do think i do think so you know we i am getting so many phone calls from from mothers in particular who of course were so horrified about what happened in connecticut asking what can i do what can i do and you know when women put their mind to something you know there's no stopping us so and you know our great women senators are out there in front on this issue so we're we're standing behind senator feinstein on her her call for e instituting the assault weapons ban so so you know a lot of this is talking to parents about how to keep their kids safe so we think that you know this is a big place for women in this discussion even though they're not the ones that are perpetrating these horrific crimes it's and speaking of.

josh. josh i'm sorry yes speaking of. dianne feinstein it was i mean she was in wasn't george moscone administration when he was assassinated. he and harvey. milk were assassinated in a white as i recall and it's been it's been a lot of years when she was actually in the office and i think that's going to form of part of her legislative advocacy and you know she's been a champion for so many years but what's really exciting about this moment always brought by tragedy but still it's an important thing is that there are now all sorts of other people joining her and saying this is you know and so it's not just dianne feinstein or chuck schumer we have now you know across the political spectrum people are saying enough is enough it's time to time to get something done and you know that and that and that's going to be hard work what do you do how do you can you know you talked about movement earlier in the show and sister. i mean

this over time is what's is what's going to be difficult because the n.r.a. won't be quiet forever they will come back with some type of advocacy campaign and we need all the people who are interested and and upset today to make a commitment to stay in it for the long haul because things can happen and hopefully will happen soon but a long long term change will take you know months years potentially and we need people to say we're going to be there with you all the time and i'm not going to we all have web sites well of facebook pages but to stay involved get involved with these organizations learn we will tell you how this fight progresses but make a commitment today to your friends to your neighbors to your kids to say i will not stop as an advocate for this is done build a movement around this john and jonathan there is within probably a subset of what's what has reorganize itself as the tea party movement what arguably used to be the john birch society movement whatever there is this subset that i refer to as the glenn backers you know the survivalists sometimes they call

themselves. or the preppers i guess is the new phrase for the preparing for the end you know preparing for the collapse of society which they know is going to happen now that obama's in the white house or whatever. to what extent do they you know i view the n.r.a. as kind of the corporate face of this the people just making money off it they don't care what happens. or maybe they do but i you know it's just it's all about the money but for the properties for the survivalists. is this a small lunatic fringe that is wildly over represented in in the media and in you know and feared by politicians are or is it actually a good chunk of middle america you know that you know joe sixpack so i think they're on the margins i don't think it's a big voting bloc politically you know and so you know i think when you. look at

the polling on specific gun control issues like background checks are solid and you see broad support among gun owners as well so i think that shows that this group you're talking about are really you know extremists are on the margins and it's they're not you know a group that politicians have to concern themselves with much now i you know i'm competent with firearms and i've been around them much of my life and i've up until very recently always taken the position that local community should be making decisions about you know what they want to do but this is just you know over the over this weekend i've just come around to say we should be doing what's what's learned australia the united kingdom has done you know just say what israel does if you want to have a gun you have to demonstrate that you have the need do you think that there's any chance jonathan that that something like that could become law here in the united states no i mean because the supreme court's decision in heller states that there's

a second amendment right of law abiding responsible citizens to have a gun in the home for self-defense we can disagree with just as you know it's a lot of second amendment is the second amendment is what the supreme court says that is what five justices say it is so that is what the second amendment states it's the law at least for the moment and well that is that is the established at this point and i think given that and also given the political realities i don't think that's the sort of model that we'd have in america but that's sad you know the fact is there were only gun bans in d.c. and chicago in a couple of suburbs of chicago when those decisions came down but that said i mean there are a lot of things we can do i mean new york's gun laws for example very strong do a great show of balance saying those people who truly need a gun or feel that they truly need to go and protecting public safety so. i think

new york and california are certainly two models that we can we can emulate and try to you know bring out to the to the national level you know laurie what's what's the what's your sense of this the the legal possibilities here and how far we can go in america to saying you know enough we're going to start having a gun free society or is that even desirable in your mind. if i think we have to start with what's in front of us and where we can find the most common ground and the greater the broadest support i mean that that's really where we need to start and as everyone said earlier when that is with the assault weapons ban being put back in place and making sure that we close the gun show loopholes and and have comprehensive background checks. and banning high capacity magazines those are the things that are right in front of us and that's where we should start because that's going to make

a real difference and we we've seen those kinds of measures make make a difference josh we just have a minute left here is there or is there a possibility if just the assault weapons ban is passed with all the loopholes that at least were in it last time that we might all just go ok that's fine let's move on and really not a lot will change i don't i don't think so i think that we've learned from the past we know that it's important if you really want to do something about assault weapons that you need to have a strong. strong regulation like for instance california you know connecticut actually has to solve its band it's not very strong and that may be very why this mrs lander here was able to get in the assault weapons so we need to have you all saw weapons and some pistols but the but this all has been needs to be strong and needs to be based for instance the way california does if they have a successful model there people can still purchase firearms people can still go hunting but they've managed to keep these types of assault or any of you privy to dianne feinstein's legislation do you do any of you know if it's going to be substantially different than the previous assault weapons ban. this is this is

apparently something we don't know yet what i think you know these are the discussions that are underway right now and you know there are private discussions among different subjects so this is this is a great time for all of us to be contacting senator feinstein's office and say i've put such a threat i think that's obscene absolutely ok. thank you all very much thanks very much for sharing q. experiment. it's the good the bad of the very very excess sure was silly ugly good call the act ever knows how t.v. commercials always seem to be louder than t.v. programs that really annoy you won't be annoying you any longer that's because today the call act went into effect that act limits the volume of commercials that are aired on t.v. act which governs broadcasters as well as cable and satellite providers is intended

to protect americans from excessively loud commercials and of a network fails to turn down the volume you can report them to they have c c unfortunately the comic does nothing to address the annoyance levels it's the bat tim scott scott of soon to be the nation's newest senator after being chosen today to replace south carolina republican senator jim de mint who is leaving in january to take over the right wing heritage foundation think tank for a million bucks a year unfortunately for americans scott is a staunch tea partier in recent years scott has supporters in president obama proposed a bill to cut off food stamps to families with striking union members and help cut hiv aids funding in south carolina so scott is a new face of the senate it's all the same old story republicans standing up for corporate interests and against the interest of the american. and the very very ugly muck donald the fast food chain authorities for paying low wages to its workers now wants to force them to work on christmas without earning overtime in

a statement and don said our restaurants will be open to serve our customers when and how they need over the holidays or company on restaurants are open on the holidays the staff voluntarily sign up to work there is no regular overtime pay so the staff volunteers to work free of overtime pay rather than spend the day with their families or. company also sent a letter to its franchise owners asking them to quote ensure your restaurants are open throughout the holiday and bad enough employees of the donald are being forced to work on christmas but not paying them overtime for it that is very very. after the break on friday twenty sweet innocent little children lost their lives in one of the most senseless and horrified acts of violence in american history fortunately president obama has the power to make sure these children did not die in vain is this the president's defining moment i'll tell you in tonight's deleter .

the worst you're going to. wipe out superman the radio guy and pull out of a zero minestrone hospital i want you to watch what we're about to give you never seen anything like good on trial.

for you. in. the long. term outlook for my. primary. coming up.

so sometimes you know what you know sometimes you know what you don't know and sometimes is the fires and theater says everything you know is wrong and. you're right. that's. right you're right. there you go it's. like with any mind altering age in our society has a large number of misfires misperceptions when it comes to hold some engines like l.s.d. many people think that they make you go insane might cause you to jump out of windows because you think you're superman and will even make you want to bite off people's faces but in reality these misperceptions are preventing us from recognizing the beneficial aspects of hallucinogens so if you think that psychedelics will

permanently rot your brain in a magic mushrooms will turn you into a maniac that everything you know is wrong joining me now is at the pharmacologist dennis mccann it was study plan elucidations for over four decades he's also the author of the new book the brotherhood of the screaming abyss my life with terence mckenna dennis welcome. thank you sir pleasure to be here it's great to have you with us did i read about you in true hallucinations i read the book more than a decade ago yes i was it was the star of true elucidations in a sense i mean that was terence's book it was there his narrative of our adventures of the amazon and my eight hundred seventy one in search of the you know exotic indigenous hallucinogens so yes you that's where you that was where you heard my story and tell now and now i've told my side of the story in this new book that's that's that's marvelous and i also i loved food of the gods your brother's book i'm

looking forward to reading yours to what extent as a society are we being stupid by not only ignoring the potential benefits of psychedelics but but banning them even banning research on. well yeah to a large extent we are being stupid because these these plants these substances of have an important role in in the show mommy you know the show monic societies they they are at the lynchpin of showmen islam which is really in indigenous societies the last where are you know showman's or healers. they use plan to loosen instances the way to access other dimensions of debt and help the community they're kind of their contact with the supernatural that's the role of they play and they use these hallucinogens and they learn how to. manipulate how to navigate you nice

other dimensions if you will and represent. their community too you don't have the supernatural world but on the scientific side. and the ban on the research is slowly dissolving there are actually a number of. clinical trials now underway f.d.a. approved trials using things like cilla sidemen from the magic mushrooms to help people come to terms help people with terminal illnesses come to terms with their their death and their anxiety around death and help them prepare for their death and other application is the compound m.d.m.a. which is known as ecstasy the street drug the party drug m.d.m.a. but in the right psychotherapeutic even it can be used for. post-traumatic stress syndrome and there have been a couple of new studies showing that these are you know elisa rigorous scientific

studies these are done by risk and i guess we just have we just have about twenty seconds left at the stone age theory i thought was brilliant that these plants played a role in our evolution can you speak to that very briefly please well it's possible it's unproven but the idea was that essentially the origin of consciousness the development of cognition in our species may have been triggered by some of these psychedelic experiences that's that's possible it's a plausible idea there's no proof for it. you know but it's a reasonable thing to suppose remarkable so they might have brought us to this point and then i take us beyond this point dennis thank you so much for being with us and thank you so much i would very much forward to reading your book. thank you so much. however.

great president obama friday the day the twenty first graders were gunned down at sandy hook elementary school was the toughest day of his presidency usually that's a sign that a defining moment has arrived our president's legacies are shaped by how they deal with these defining moments for george w. bush was not at a funny moment he used to encourage americans to go shopping while their government constructed a massive surveillance state and launched an unwinnable war on terror that's killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of people around the world bankrupt our nation at home and turned us into pariahs for f.d.r. it was the great depression and a funny moment he used to pass the new deal so that bush's legacy is tarnished and f.d.r.'s legacy is celebrated all because of how each use their respective defining

moments but often history's take on defining moments is more complicated jimmy carter knows this lesson all too well as he used the defining moment of his presidency the energy crisis to push for a revolutionary change in how we deal with energy here in the united states with the economy crippled by inflation and gas shortages jimmy carter used a nationally televised address to discuss what he called a crisis of confidence afflicting america unlike how bush two decades later would call on americans to indulge themselves after nine eleven when really what was needed was deep introspection about america's role of the world carter challenged the nation and spoke bluntly about the crisis america was facing. family. close knit community is now faith in god to many

of us not. to to worship so often diligence and consumption and i'm asking you. for your good and for your nation's security to take. trips to use public transportation whenever you can and to talk your. extra day week to a greater speed limit and assist them instead to save fuel. energy conservation like this is more than just common sense. i tell you it is an act of patriotism very rarely do american presidents speak in such a tone the american people very rarely especially nowadays to presidents tell the inconvenient truths or challenge the nation to fundamentally change the way we operate by giving that speech carter gamble because during defining moments gambles or. today most of carter's significant achievements when it comes to energy

reform are forgotten that actual energy act provided crucial tax credits to renewable energy and gave homeowners across america incentives to go solar and the public utility regulatory policies act was instrumental in giving alternative energy providers access to the market for a short time for a couple of years it looked like carter's gamble to take on the wealthy entrenched interests of big oil during his defining moment had paid off and the nation would indeed fundamentally change but it was short lived. in the one nine hundred eighty election after the iranian hostage crisis republicans ran ronald reagan who struck a much different tone with the american people rather than the straight talking challenge carter thrown down reagan promised america painless indulgence not only to reagan not try to curb excesses he embraced them by saying the united states is exceptional and thus we're entitled to anything we can get our hands on the result

is that we're still hooked on saudi oil and we're still overheating our planet the tragedy at sandy hook elementary in newtown is president obama's defining moment and just like f.d.r. and carter the president is using this moment to lay down the gauntlet to the american people in a memorial speech on sunday for the twenty six victims of the sandy hook elementary school shooting president obama asked the question of whether or not we as a nation are doing enough to keep our children safe and then he answered that rhetorical question with a solemn no acknowledging that this is the fourth time in his presidency he's had to console victims of a mass shooting the president said this. we can't tolerate this anymore. these tragedies muslim. we can't

accept events like this as routine. but we really prepared to say that we're powerless. in the face of such carnage. but the politics are too hard. we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year some of the price of our freedom . what the president chooses to do just like what bush carter and f.d.r. chose to do with their defining moments is going to define his legacy like f.d.r. and carter obama is choosing to challenge us rather than coddle us. in the coming weeks i'll use whatever power of all this office holds to engage my fellow citizens from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. because what choice do we have

this is exactly what our nation needs for far too long tragedy after tragedy after tragedy we have ignored the harsh realities of the american violent gun culture and this time the president's challenge won't be derailed by a republican promise in the world as carter's was because obama doesn't have to win a reelection i mean the powerful and cash flow gun lobby can't define this moment on their own terms through presidential politics let's hope the president understands this is an enormous opportunity while there's no single silver bullet solution of these massacres president obama can start by leading the charge to take assault weapons high capacity an eclipse and other weapons of war literally weapons of war off the streets he can start by investing more in community mental health programs give help to those in need before their madness consumes another town and

then he can get down to addressing the underlying causes of much of the causal relationship between violence and mental illness one of the biggest it's wealth inequality with the twenty first graders set to be buried in the coming week now is not the time for delayed debates and half measures now is the time for a leader who will use this defining moment to take america out of this dark age of violence and into a new renaissance of peace and community this is the kind of moment in time when nations move forward and presidential legacies are created let's hope this president takes the challenge. and follows through. and that's the way it is that a monday december seventeenth twenty twelve more information on the stories we covered visit our website to tom hartman dot com free speech dot org and our team dot com if you missed any of that i show you can watch in h.d.

on hulu and our you you can also check out huge channels of thom hartmann dot com here all the different ways you sent us your feedback and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active tag your civil. this.

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